


Taako's View

by Desiree_Harding



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Aging, Barry and Lup are there too, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Death in this fandom is just a Tuesday really, Dementia, F/M, Kravitz Watches Taako's Final Years, M/M, Mentions of Angus McDonald - Freeform, Mentions of the whole Starblaster Crew, Minor Angst, One Shot, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, but it's ok in the end, just general aging/mortality themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 04:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15677931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desiree_Harding/pseuds/Desiree_Harding
Summary: "Kravitz has always been present for death only, and never the aging that comes before it. He sees, with Taako, things that he never had the context to understand."Many, many full years after the Story and the Song, Taako passes on. Kravitz is there the whole time.





	Taako's View

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVZvD3TZcCI) while I was writing this fic and I think it pretty effectively expresses the general mood so if you're interested, I would highly suggest you put it on while you read as well. Here it is on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/1IdFe95mbPPBTRghaIgXcy).
> 
> Thank you for the read <3

Kravitz, for such a long time, has thought that elves must be blessed by the gods, receiving all the benefits of mortality, with none of the many drawbacks.

Their ethereal beauty never leaves them as long as they live; they get to stay alive for _such_ a long time, and learn and see and _do_ so much. Their wide perspective of time and of existence is rivaled only by the immortals, and they grow to be so very _wise_.

He has always been present for death only, and never the aging that comes before it. He sees, with Taako, things that he never had the context to understand.

Taako ages. It’s so slow and so subtle that Kravitz barely notices for such a long time, but after several hundred years it dawns on him that Taako is no longer as dexterous as he used to be, that he goes on fewer tours, spends more time at home. That he has energy for fewer personal apprentices at a time. He begins meditating again, because when he falls asleep he sleeps for longer stretches, and with his busy schedule he can’t afford to give up the time.

He watches, over the many years, as Taako becomes nearly unrecognizable.

Not physically. Physically, Taako has only visibly aged to maybe the appearance of a fifty-year-old human. There are crows feet at the corner of his eyes, and he’s a bit wirier than he once was in younger days, like some of the crucial filling out in his frame has fallen away. There are more sunspots appearing on his skin by the day.

But it is the changes in Taako’s mental state that are the most heartbreaking for Kravitz to see.

The forgetfulness is what asserts itself the most. First it was simple things slipping his mind during trips to the market, then appointments with students and faculty at his school, and then bigger things. It’s hard on him, Kravitz knows. After Lucretia erased his memory years and years ago, he’s always been extra sensitive to forgetting anything at all, as though he’s afraid he’ll lose everything all over again. It’s a wound that never healed.

Kravitz remembers vividly Taako beating himself up mercilessly one afternoon, after realizing he’d forgotten to visit Angus’s grave to wish him a happy birthday, because he’d forgotten when his birthday was.

Kravitz held him so close and murmured words of comfort in his ear, but it had done little good.

It gets worse. Taako will tell stories at family dinners with Kravitz and Barry and Lup that they’ve all heard before. He’ll tell stories of the Stolen Century like Lup and Barry weren’t there, like they’re excited students or press just waiting to gobble up the latest “Taako exclusive,” and it they smile and laugh along but Kravitz catches Lup shedding quiet tears in the dark of the front hall between courses.

Taako picks a fight with him one day, when Kravitz comes home to find their kitchen completely overturned, a giant mess, and when he comments on it Taako screams at him, tells him what does he care and it’s none of his gods-damned business, and it’s Taako’s house, not his, and he can fuck right back off to the Astral Place if he doesn’t like it. Kravitz, exasperated, does fuck off – but only for about a minute into the hall to cool off before walking back to the kitchen where Taako is collapsed on the floor, crying desperately into his arms, and Kravitz scoops him up and brings him to the couch and holds him for long moments until the tears subside.

Taako was angry because he was trying to cook Tesseralian as a surprise for Lup, but when he tried, he couldn’t remember the recipes.

Kravitz knows he’s angry, and sad, and scared, and he does what he can, he and Lup and Barry leaving Taako lists and making recipe books and calendars as kindly as they can, leaving little handwritten labels on the pictures of old students and of the IPRE family they have spread around the house, so that Taako won’t forget. And in his lucid moments, sometimes these measures make Taako furious, but Kravitz can see the relief under it all that he has that safety net, that his life isn’t slipping away from him just yet.

They have to find their way around it one day at a time, have to learn the best way to take care of him so that he doesn’t waste away in frustration and misery in his old age.

He loses his grasp on time, near the end. He forgets where he is and more importantly, _when_ he is. He asks after people long dead, wondering when Magnus and Merle are going to visit again, or sure that he went to spend a weekend on Davenport’s yacht only a week ago. He calls Kravitz by strange names he hasn’t heard in years, mostly the names of his old apprentices, and occasionally by Angus’s name. Barry, too, gets a plethora of new identities thrust upon him. Lup gets only one. It seems she’s just about the only constant in his addled head, but once in a blue moon, he’ll refer to her offhandedly as _Auntie_ and Kravitz can see how much it shakes her every single time.

At first, they try gently to correct him, to steer his mind back from wherever it has wandered to the grips of reality. But after a short time, they realize it only leaves him feeling lonely and sad and upset with himself for being so lost, so they give up on keeping Taako on track.

Taako will ask if Kravitz can invite Angus over for dinner, since the boy works himself so hard at Lucas’s school, and the food there isn’t anywhere _near_ what Taako can do, obvi. Kravitz says he’ll do it right away, and at first he leaves the room to fake stone calls to Angus, but it quickly becomes evident that Taako won’t be able to focus long enough to remember what he requested Kravitz do in the first place. Kravitz stays by his side and has long conversations posing as the many people Taako mistakes him for, and he tries to keep a stiff upper lip in the meantime.

Taako is so happy these days, though, since Kravitz stopped correcting him, that he finds it in himself to go on.

Funny enough, the one who ends up being best with Taako is Barry. Where Kravitz and Lup get so invested they have to take quick breaks to hold onto their sanity while they watch their favorite person in the whole multiverse deteriorate to a shadow of himself, Barry can sit with him for long hours, playing games that Taako swears he knows the rules to, and going along with whatever Taako claims they are. He trades stories with Taako with no hint of pity or condescension, and the various identities he’s called upon to play don’t seem to phase him at all. Taako is so happy when Barry comes to visit, half the time because he’s thrilled to see his brother, and to remind him that he still looks better than Barry, even in his old age, and half the time because Barry lets him live out his delusions so fully.

There are moments when Taako forgets who Kravitz is, but he’s not distressed by the stranger in his home, in his bed, he just compliments Kravitz profusely, or throws pickup lines his way, or makes an offhand comment about how he sure hit the jackpot. It makes Kravitz sad but it also makes him laugh and laugh, and a little warmth flickers in him that Taako’s still into him after all these years.

Other nights, Taako knows exactly who Kravitz is, and he pulls him close in their bed and he whispers to him how much he loves him, how grateful he is, how _lucky_ he feels, and he kisses Kravitz’s ring on his finger and touches his face like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen.

Kravitz spends every moment he can reminding Taako how very much he loves him, and how he always, always will, and Taako accepts it with a smile and a hair flip, and _glows_.

Kravitz knows the night that Taako is going to die.

He and the other two have been preparing for it for a long time, and the IPRE family has been waiting on Magnus and Julia’s little island in the Astral Plane, arriving one by one and assembling to eventually say their final goodbyes before going to their rest in the sea of souls. Taako outlives them all by a longshot, not to anyone’s surprise, but they all insist they don’t mind the wait.

But Kravitz can sense death on Taako as easily as he can see the blanket draped over his form when he sits in his favorite armchair, and the night that Taako is going to die, Lup cooks him a beautiful dinner, and they drink wine and talk, with flowers and candles on the table, and after dinner, and after dessert, Kravitz scoops up his husband, and cuts a rift in time and space.

There’s a cliff, high above Neverwinter, a little overlook along the steep mountainside, that looks out over the whole city, and onto the Stillwater Sea, and Kravitz’s rift lets out there, and he walks Taako to the edge to look.

Taako nonchalantly swings his feet over the edge and sits, right there on the ground, looking out over Neverwinter, the thousands of twinkling lights below like a brighter echo of the stars above, and shivers in the cold, windy night air that buffets the peaks above. Kravitz pulls off his Ravens’ cloak and wraps it around the elf, before sitting behind him, Taako between his legs, as he pulls his husband, back to Kravitz’s chest, in an embrace.

They don’t say a word. For the first time in his life, it seems Taako… has nothing to say. They sit in silence, nothing but the sound of the wind and the night, alive, beautiful and bright around them. There’s only the one moon in the sky now, but it’s bright and full and somehow does so little to illuminate the vastness of the whole world spread out below them.

Taako shifts, brings one knee up, leans back more securely into Kravitz’s chest, and Kravitz kisses the top of his head.

Another ripping sound behind him, and Barry and Lup, not saying a word, settle down beside them. Lup on Taako’s left, Barry on his right. And like second nature, Taako takes each of their hands, and they sit, side by side, watching the night pass by below and above and around them, and Taako lets out a deep breath.

They sit for a long time, Taako and his family, and he’s so relaxed, and Kravitz, if he leans a bit, can see that his face is relaxed in a gentle smile, contentment running deep through every bone and muscle and fiber of him, one last time.

They sit, and Kravitz waits while Taako breathes, until he slumps back against Kravitz’s chest, and doesn’t breathe anymore.

Lup immediately bursts into tears on his left, pulling his hand up to her mouth and kissing it in the moment after his passing, and Barry wipes away a couple of his own tears before getting up to wrap his arms around his wife. Kravitz places another kiss on Taako’s head, and squeezes Barry’s shoulder, waiting for Barry to wave him on, before he carefully, gently, gentler than he’s ever done anything, lays Taako’s body down on the ground, and he cuts a rift to the Ethereal Plane.

He just barely has time to seal up the rift before he hears Taako’s voice.

“Well,” he says, and Kravitz turns to see him, his soul projection young, with his pre-Wonderland face, and wearing a clean, undamaged version of the outfit Kravitz saw him running across a field of clear blue Sapphire in on the most important day in the history of everything, wizarding hat and all, and his eyes are sharp and clear for the first time in almost a hundred years, and he says, “aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, handsome.”

Kravitz wastes no time in moving to Taako and pulling him in for a searing kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ever so much for reading this little thing I cranked out in an hour tonight. I started listening to music and thinking about my boy while I was cooking dinner tonight and this wouldn't leave me alone until I put it down. Bless the McElroys for inspiring me to write again.  
> As always, let me know if you liked it by leaving a kudos/comment!  
> If you'd like to talk more about TAZ, visit me on my tumblr, [desiree-harding](https://desiree-harding.tumblr.com). I always want to talk.  
> <3


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